An Interview with Mirjana Lozanovska
(“Inter” refers to the interviewer, “Mirjana” refers to Mirjana Lozanovska)
INTER:	Mirjana, I'm interested in talking to you about the CD Rom Contemporary Architecture and I know when you gave a seminar on the CD you held up a printed reader and a CD and you said, 'How did I get to this?' and you actually spoke at length about your passion or love of learning about a subject and your scholarly interests in the subject matter. So I wonder whether you can take us on that journey of what were the origins of getting to a CD and a printed reader for the subject?
Mirjana:	I guess that I was very interested in developing a history unit that was on our most recent period in that sense and I also that and I suppose that means that the students kind of live in the period that we are talking about but what led me to that was my own research background and interest in the built environment as a thing that mediates human dignity and I think human identity and I think we underestimate how much of our sense of self at every level physical and subconscious, sociological we get from our built environment and our present built environment and so in order to form a discussion around that I wanted to develop this unit and a couple of other things I think were very, very important to understand the role of history and theory in architecture was one of the bases of the unit because we talk about the making of the world but in order to make a better world history and theory integral to the discipline of architecture because it's an understanding what kind of world we have in terms of the built physical world. So I was especially interested in developing a thoughtful and very grounded kind of unit. So there's also and ethical position that I have and that is that I really wanted to do a history unit that included many parts of the world and the ethical position that it comes out of my research about that sense of human dignity we all know that the knowledge available to us is predominantly Western kind of narrative and so one of my tasks and still proving to be an enormous challenge is to find material of architecture and buildings in the non West parts of the world and while interesting in more recent times there is a bit more focus on Asia especially from the Australian prospective. There isn't still much attention given to Africa, to the Middle East, to Russia, to the bulk of South America and so forth. So that was one of the agendas for the unit at a point of an ethical position.
INTER:	When you mention that focus in the curriculum Mirjana, I immediately think of the graduate attributes and providing an international prospective in culture sensitivity and also one of the key objectives of the teaching and learning plan relating to internationalizing the curriculum. Those things are really easy say in a policy sense, but I think there very difficult to actually construct in your curriculum and teach effectively. Have you got any further comment to make on how you actually see them in enacting a more international curriculum and teaching in this subject?
Mirjana:	Well the reason I said I can't believe that I, we've achieved this, the LS team and myself the CD Rom and the reader is in fact part of it took, I have to admit years to actually develop the material for the unit and I don't mean just the theoretical material that in some sense might have taken less time but the images of buildings from other parts of the world. What kind of projects? What did they look like? What were those architects interested in? Were they similar or different to other architecture and building in other parts of the world? So just to find the visual material because I do have to say there is a focus on visual material on the CD Rom, was in its self a huge task and then of course getting the copyright for the images wherever we could, trying to find friends and people that had taken these photographs and used their photographs, architects, architecture friends that have photographs of some of these building and being able to use their photographs and wherever possible finding internet images that we could get copyright of, because as you know it's very difficult to get copyright on text images in books and so forth.
INTER:	Now getting to the presentation of the material on the CD Rom its self, I wonder whether you can paint a picture of when you open up the CD, what do user students see? How have you organised the images, the material? I know it's organised schematically, how did you think through theme as a key basis for organising the images?
Mirjana:	Yes, when you open up the CD of course you get the very gorgeous, Flash, exuberant introduction with music and then me speaking but once you get into the unit then the unit is organised around twelve themes. The main motive for that is a pedagogical one where if we are talking about a period after nineteen sixty-eight it's over, it's just over thirty-five years. Not an incredibly long period and if we are talking about a kind of a pedagogical position which want to include the whole world then it seemed that themes were the way that the buildings and the theoretical material began to organise it self through my analysis of it and so rather than talking about the period between sixty eight and seventy eight or something like that we talk about housing across those thirty or so years, across the globe and what kind of changes that were along those thirty or so years across the globe but also what similarities and differences are there between a developing country for example in relation to housing and a developed country and so the questions that then emerge are thematic questions about that theme, the question about housing emerges as a very large theme that is one way of defining that period or one way looking at that entire period.
INTER:	Now the other thing that really strikes you when you open it up and look at the home page is assessment is up front and the work that you want students to do is there in the assessment requirements. Can you tell me little bit about how you go about constructing the assessment regime for the unit? The types of assignment tasks you set in regard to the engagement with the material on the CD Rom.
Mirjana:	Yes, there are basically three assignments for the whole unit. I do have to say that there is a kind of triangular structure to the unit. In that there are three components to each theme. There are the theoretically text and a summary, then there are the projects so that there is focus on real built work and there is images of this work, key projects, as well as the summary for it and the architects and you can actually browse through those three components for each theme and then one might be off to another theme because of a particular architect did another key project in another theme so there's this sort of growth through the use of CD Rom. So those three components. So the assignments relate both directly and indirectly to those three components and trying to find the links between them. So assignment one is a question for each theme that the students have to do, twelve theme questions. Now that basically enabled the students to focus on each theme and to read the material for each theme and to look at the projects and then demonstrate their understanding of it. So that's a sort of thematic question but they don't necessarily have to do it in order their submitted in groups of four and so forth. The assignment two focuses on being able to look at more recent material periodicals and journals because it a unit that talks about a period after nineteen sixty eight there isn't a lot of text books about it and so it's a lively dynamic unit in that your looking at you know some of the most latest ideas and projects and so forth. So assignment two is a focus on being able to research through periodicals and journals and Internet sites and you will find on the CD Rom direct web sites that we have filtered through our periodical filtering kind of process for the students to link up to. So in that assignment they might look at housing through one journal and how that journal attended to reporting housing say in a twenty-year period. They might look at one architect and how that one architect was looked at across journals when that architect practically prominent and so forth. So again that structure of three becomes relevant and in the final essay it's quite a bit more open that invariably the students love to choose the question on doing an essay on a architect, on a particular architect and therefore their able to choose the architect that they have a passion for I suppose and that's and that in addition enables them to bring that knowledge into their own design architect work, in depth knowledge of a particular architect but their not meant to do a autobiography of an architect, which there are many of. Their meant to look at an architect through a practically framed and focused analytical framework and there's some examples given in that assignment.
INTER:	Now one thing you did in dealing with each theme is you had a short audio lecture or introduction. You did many of them but a colleague did one or two. What was the purpose of doing them?
Mirjana:	I think in all of this it was an attempt for me to translate what is typically a textural kind of unit, guide and unit process into the digital format of a CD Rom and so what the CD Rom enables us to do is have this multimedia kind of presentation of the unit and I felt that one of the things of off campus students often miss out on is the voice of the lecturer and their own interest and potential inspiration about the unit and so I wanted to include that little audio extract you know snip-it in order that student are able also listen to an explanation of a particular theme, there very brief but it does give them, there about, they range between ten and fifteen minutes I think. It does give them a snip-it of being able to sense a kind of a personal relation with lecturer. For example or the speaker for a particular lecture and also everything that comes with audio the tone, the kind of attention, the pauses and so forth and so that gives it a kind of dynamic quality of interaction with the off campus student.
INTER:	So you're mentioning off campus student and if we turn to the student experience of learning the unit and even using the CD, how would you summarize the experiences of the students engaging with a unit of this nature, how do you assess that?
Mirjana:	They do respond to me especially when they first receive the material, which they must think is minimal because they just get one reader with one CD in the front cover so in that sense it's a minimal package. There's no printed unit guide and so forth and so I think at first they're a bit perplexed as to where is the unit and so I've had comments in the first week. I can't find the syllabus, so then I explain to them it's in the CD and from then on, by the end of the semester I then invariably had very positive feedback, but I also, very positive feedback about the capacity to browse through the unit across those various structural components of the CD and but also the richness of the material and the image, the extent of the images there is and so forth and projects and so that sort of realness of the, of the unit has been commented on positively. But also asked the students if they come across any hic-ups if something isn't quite right on the CD or if there's just a human error that they tell me about it then we can amend it on the next round.
INTER:	And Mirjana how do you actually work with the printed readings and the CD in term of your own classroom teaching for the students studying on this campus? How do you integrate the two? Your classroom teaching on one hand and the printed reading and the CD Rom on the other.
Mirjana:	Well I have to say the CD was first designed for off campus material but since delivering it for the first time last year, I have had positive feedback on it and then after giving that presentation to the staff here, that I very much encourage my on campus students to get a copy of it and they invariably use it to go over a lecture, I mean the lecturers are two hours long and the summaries not two hours but with the projects and so forth you know they are able to go over it and especially any parts they are interested in, in particular. So it enables them to in a sense to pursue their own lines of passion about architecture through the CD and to allow that to grow rather than it be limited to the lecture. Even though I have to say that the lectures are an additional component that can not be substituted for non lectures but they do work very well together and the both on campus and off campus students have a book for a reader, but the book is an anthology of essays. Its not written by one person, there is no text book really for this unit and the reason I did that, is that it includes the twelve essays students have to read but it includes many other essays. So again they're able to browse through that anthology of essays and follow there own paths of interests and about this period of architecture.
INTER:	When you are reflecting on the whole experience of developing the CD and working with talented people in Learning Services of course. What lessons do you think you have learnt Mirjana, what would you pass on to your colleagues who might be interested in doing this type of multimedia CD development? To me you're very clear about nature of the curriculum and its structuring you've accumulated a lot a images but what things would you advise on in regard to the issue of particularly developing and producing a CD?
Mirjana:	I think that having an incredibly talented team in Learning Services and I will read out the names if I can Adrienne Campbell, Jacqui O'Leary and Tony Neylan was more than I could of imagined and their technical expertise as well as editing expertise and so forth combined with my own content and my own pedagogical position was in its self a kind of a very making a of potentially a good CD Rom and a good unit and so forth, nonetheless each of us was on a huge learning path to try and combine those two things the best way possible and so I remember initially Adrienne and I in order to formulate the template of the unit would sit down and have these quite intensive discussions, both of us learning and both us very, very interested but what came out of those is the special format of a CD. Now I guess in some ways I'm lucky in being an architect that I can have an understanding of a spatial form of organisation more than some other people that might be purely historians or purely business managers or so forth I don't know or purely scientists so you know I'm sure the other disciplines have also some kind of a sense of spatial but there is a spatial organisation in the CD Rom it's not chronological the CD Rom you don't go about it step one, step two, step three. We structured the twelve themes one, two, three up to twelve but then from the twelve themes you could go out to projects that might lead you to architect, that might lead you to other projects by that architect. So there was this very enabling capacity browse and therefore to inspire self-learning. So that spatial organisation was something that I think I can come to terms with right at the beginning does help the translation of the textural material onto a CD Rom. The other one is if it involves visual material to have that in a sense more or less prepared before the production of the CD starts because it does take an enormous amount of time and I think though the other thing that helped me is very regular meetings between us because we're obviously on the same campus and we were just 2 floors up, we were able to ring each other on the spot and go down and attend to the problem to enable the production to keep going. I think the biggest hic-up though trying to timetable the production of a CD to some how be convenient for both the Learning Services people who have their own huge schedule of productions and academics who have intensive work at some times during the semesters then not between semesters. So I think that's the most difficult. So if you can get that organised then it might be a smoother production of it. I just wanted to add one more thing about the ethical position and we talked about internationalisation of the unit and its content and so forth. I have to say though I invariably I bring some of that back to Australia by talking about architecture for aboriginal communities, architecture immigrates communities and so forth. So that sense of internationalisation that's beyond the Western realm, the predominant global Western realm is brought back to our local context so that relationship between the local and the global is always played out and that is another very significant ethical position that I hold on to.
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